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Jeff Vrabel: Flight ads
I'm on a plane at 7 a.m., the golden sun breaking over the California mountains, watching a lengthy advertisement about a serial killer. This ad is for a show starring Kevin Bacon, and it features the the routine litany of visual cues associated with television dramas — the dank visuals, idiotic strobe effects and broken mirrors (METAPHORS for his MIND, you know) that indicate this show will entertain you while also doing a deep and permanent psychological trauma. At one point the show's title appears on the screen, scrawled on a basement wall in drippy blood. A few moments later there's a girl's naked back, covered in frightening, occult-lookings tattoos. There's at least one corpse, and one guy swinging a 2X4 at another guy's head, though the next jump-cut happens before impact. When they show the bad guy, the screen goes all sketchy and jittery, so everyone's all caught up that he's, you know, the bad guy, the stubbly serial killer on whom the camera is gazing dreamily.
Whatever, it looks stupid. But it also just … looks. It looks something, because it's unavoidable. There is no switch to turn off the serial killer, no way to shut down this insistent, effervescent ad parade. The screen on my flight out west — carved and embedded, like this one, into every single seat on the airplane — was at least under my control, albeit only after I figured out the unpublicized Easter egg that turning the screen's brightness all the way down completed the deeply discouraged task of turning the screen off. This flight doesn't afford me that choice.
I'm not watching the screen, and in fact at this point I'm agitated enough to want to smash it with my copy of SkyMall (which, I'd remind you, is mine to keep!), but it's always there, it's never off, it's demanding your attention constantly, in your forced field of vision, the net effect being that I — and all of, everyone on the plane, vacationers and business travelers and children — cannot turn off Kevin Bacon, the smoldering serial killer, the scary bloody walls or the corpse. We're all registering it every few minutes. We're actually registering it more profoundly thanks to whatever marketing PowerPoints revealed in the past few years that people internalize commercials for inane television more when those commercials include the actual words on the screen, so if the show's about a murderer, you put the word HE'S A MURDERER up there in 400-pt. bold. in large bold type, moving if possible. This way, even if the subtlety of the nefarious glances and skittish jump-cuts and people pointing guns at the cameraman is missed by you, you don't have to be in the dark about what's going on. This ad for the the Kevin Bacon show includes two that read, in order:
Even serial killers
Have friends
Aw, good for them. Wonder if they have to discard their 3-ounce shampoo bottles?
This morning I've been rerouted twice, due to what the airline called "mechanical trouble," resulting initially in a 4.5-hour delay of my original plane. Prior to that I ran the gauntlet of taking my shoes off, unpacking my laptop. I'm unallowed to power up my phone on because of how it will irrevocably scramble the plane's compass systems and cause all the plane's navigational screens to be replaced with my "Words With Friends" games. Once before boarding a flight I had my Starbucks mocha tested with a litmus paper, coffee I purchased literally 60 feet removed from the chemical engineers now staffing the gates. Earlier I paid extra money for the privilege of bringing home my suitcase. All of which are apparently the cost of sitting jammed in an Altoids tin two feet away from an advertisement for a show about a serial killer that currently involves an interview with a child actor who can't be more than third grade, and a brief video peeking behind the scenes of the time a photographer took pictures of the actors, including such memorable moments as Kevin Bacon Walking Toward The Photographer, and The Guy With His Head Tilted Down Looking Up Menacingly. A few minutes later there's an ad encouraging me my family to enjoy "Wreck-It Ralph."
This is followed immediately by an ad for "Taken 2," starring Liam Neeson and a lot of people who have black bags thrust over their heads in drippy subways. "TRAVELING WITH FAMILY OR FRIENDS?" the screen asks insistently shortly thereafter. "TAKE $2 OFF!" I'm not traveling with family, but if I were, this would easily be the most convenient way I could let them watch a motivated Liam Neeson execute people.
It's not all excitement on the screens; there are occasional pleas from the airborne advertisement people that say things like "Let your brand be seen by the MILLIONS OF PASSENGERS who view these screens each year," or, loosely translated, "Let your brand be shoved into the face of brains that have a natural tendency to respond to blinking popping stimuli that are jammed in their fields of vision, because there's nowhere left on Earth you can go to escape advertising screens."
Jeff Vrabel usually loses his "Words With Friends" games. He can be reached at http://jeffvrabel.com and followed at http://twitter.com/jeffvrabel.


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The RidicuList answers a burning question about the infamous "tanning mom."
Post by: Anderson Cooper
Filed under: The RidicuList
hahaha oh Anderson. you could cover grass growing and make it sound good.
Tanning mom DOES look a bajillion times better, though. I'm convinced some of that color was make-up, though. You could see the shine from it. She's probably out to get a reality show...
Anderson Cooper is hilarious.
Hilarious...not to mention weird and pale 🙂
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
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subset: commoncrawl


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I remember when I first realized that Mark Richt was taking the program some place it hadn't been in a long time. Ironically, that time came during a loss – the '02 Florida game. But it was at some time during the first half when I saw the defense routinely (key word, there) stuffing an offense that had given it nothing but fits for more than a decade that I knew those guys could play with anybody. There was an attitude, a confidence about the way they went about their business that made me feel like that. And it started with the guy at the top.
So if you're expecting me to start raving about how it's time for Richt to go, or how Damon needs to start issuing ultimatums today, by Gawd, then this post is going to be a disappointment. Mark Richt is a good man and a great head coach. He hasn't stopped being either of those.
But… but. I've read Macon Dawg's reasoned, thoughtful comments about how this isn't the first time Georgia's suffered a humiliating loss, and while I agree to a point with his reasoning, I think there's more going on than that. Mark Richt wakes up this morning as the captain of a very dysfunctional ship. I doubt there's anyone in the Dawgnation, including the head coach, who feels same way about the program today as I did in Jacksonville seven years ago.
If I had to put my finger on what's wrong, I'd call it a crisis of faith. I don't mean that in a religious sense. (By the way, of all the arguments I've seen about what's wrong, blaming Coach Richt's religious convictions for the slide has to rank as the dumbest.) Rather, it's a systemic doubt: the coaches lack faith in the players to execute and the players lack faith in the coaches' ability to deploy them efficiently and effectively.
Speaking of irony, how else can you describe that in Richt's self-proclaimed year without stars, this team seems more reliant than ever on hoping that it can ride sheer talent to get through a game? That's why the offense goes through complete games where the winning strategy is little more than throw it to A.J. And that's why you see dumb decisions on the field every week, like Prince Miller electing to return a punt from his goal line.
I'm certain Miller knows in the aftermath it was a silly thing to do. We'll probably hear an acknowledgement from him of that some time this week, just like we heard from Brandon Boykin last week about his decision to run back an interception from deep in his end zone. But in the heat of the moment, look for these kids to keep doing things just like that – because that's what Georgia football boils down to these days, hoping that somebody can pull off a game saving play all by their lonesome. It's certainly entertaining, but it's no way to sustain a program over the course of a season. Or seasons, as it's starting to appear.
And that's why I have to beg to differ with Macon Dawg, at least a little. What depresses me the most about what I saw yesterday is that none of the bad happened in a vacuum. There were plenty of little instances and bigger things that echo developments we've been observing for some time now.
Here are three of those things for you to ponder as much as I have:
- Blair Walsh. Here's a stat that should blow you away – Walsh leads the SEC in touchbacks. Let me say that again. Blair Walsh has had more kickoffs result in touchbacks than any other kicker in the SEC. He's made all his PATs and he's 9 of 10 in field goal attempts. 50+ yard field goals are getting to be the norm for him. In short, he's having an all-SEC season. Yet to hear it from his coaches, you'd think he's a significant part of Georgia's special teams problems. The insistence on directional kicking in the face of Walsh's leg strength has gone from puzzling to frustrating to absurd. Insane is just around the corner, I'm afraid.
- Jonathan Crompton had a career day. Willie Martinez' epitaph? If not his, sad to say, it may wind up as Richt's. You simply can't survive as a head coach at Georgia if your teams can't play defense competently. And at this point, I'd settle quite happily for competence. There's no other way to say it than that Georgia's defense is flat out bad right now. The team's Pavlovian reactions to misdirection and play action are predictable, to the point of being reliable – just ask Kiffin – and are exacerbated by poor fundamentals. The number of quarterbacks (and tight ends) who have enjoyed Georgia's defensive bounty grows at a consistent and alarming rate. That's the worst part of Crompton's performance: nobody was surprised.
- Spiking the ball with one second on the clock. I don't know who made that Reggie-Ball-on-fourth-down-esque decision. But it's embarrassing that anyone associated with this program did. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to think of another SEC coach that would try something like that.
If it sounds like I'm putting the onus of the situation on the coaches' shoulders, you're right. The first responsibility of a good coach isn't recruiting or scheme or play calling, although they're all important. It's motivation. It's getting your kids to buy into what you're doing and believing that the program has an identity. It's why Tennessee smoked Georgia yesterday. It's why Georgia is going to struggle to win seven games this year.
And there simply isn't a valid excuse as to why this program, with all of the talent and resources it has at hand, should have to struggle to do that. The rock music critic Greil Marcus had a great line about Rod Stewart – rarely has a singer betrayed his talent so completely – that isn't on point for Mark Richt, at least not yet. But it concerns me that it still came to mind unbidden after watching yesterday's loss. Right now, if there's a bigger underachiever in college football than this Georgia squad, I can't think of it.
It's not realistic to expect changes between now and season's end. And I don't want Richt rushing off half cocked on big changes, anyway. (Besides, who could he bring in midseason, even if he wanted to make a change in coaching?)
But there's one change he could and should make now. They need to quit throwing kids under the bus in public. That's not to say that there aren't some decisions on the personnel front that are due. But the comments in the press need to stop. In some cases, like Walsh's, they're not only disheartening, they're increasingly stupid in light of the performance on the field. And whatever else Richt has to say to Martinez this week, something needs to be said about behaving like a petulant adolescent during a game when a player makes a mistake. Throwing a clipboard after a penalty may feel good, but it looks bad. There's a reason Spurrier is mocked for acting like that. There's also a reason he gets away with it. And Willie doesn't have that luxury.
It's apparent from their post game comments that these kids are hurting. Yet they've managed to acknowledge how things are falling short without pointing fingers in the press at themselves or their coaches. There's a dignity in kids like Rennie Curran that deserves our support. And that of the coaches.
One last thing. I hope this is just a sentiment of the moment, and I know it's hard to resist circling the wagons when things are going badly, but Mark Richt needs to reconsider and reject this kind of thinking:
"If you're a leader or a player and you are brave enough to be in the arena, there's going to be people outside the arena that want to throw things at you and say things about you," Richt said. "But there's honor in being in the arena, and a lot of people don't understand it because they've never been in there."
Coach, you're better than that. We're not the issue here. The real problems you face are fixable, although the fix won't be pleasant. It's time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. After all, it's not like you haven't done it before. I've no doubt you're capable of doing it again.


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Jada Pinkett Smith on open marriage rumors: I tell Will to 'do whatever you want'
To each his own, right? Jada Pinkett Smith has responded to the persistent rumors about her and Will Smith having an open marriage in an interview with HuffPost Live.
"No, I think that people get that idea because Will and I are very relaxed with one another," the actress explained. "But I've always told Will: You can do whatever you want as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and be OK.
Check out the biggest celebrity cheating scandals
"Because at the end of the day, Will is his own man," Pinkett Smith continued. "I'm here as his partner, but he is his own man. He has to decide who he wants to be and that's not for me to do for him. Or vice versa."
Pinkett Smith and Smith have been married since December 1997 and have two children, Jaden, 14, and Willow, 12. In 2011, the couple vehemently denied rumors that Pinkett Smith had cheated with her HawthoRNe co-star Marc Anthony and that they had separated.
"I don't think it's easy to be married to anyone," Pinkett Smith told HuffPost Live. "I think that you have to go into a relationship knowing — especially when you're dedicating yourself to someone for the rest of your life — this is a life partnership."
What do you think of Pinkett Smith's marriage philosophy?


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Like many Mac-based creative professionals, I followed this year's WWDC keynote anxiously, awaiting the "one more thing" that never came: an E5 Xeon refresh of the Mac Pro line. Its absence was brutally disappointing; thankfully, Tim Cook broke his vow of secrecy to reassure us that a new Mac Pro will arrive in 2013. But for filmmakers compressing hours of 4K footage or school labs in need of new Maya machines, that's a long time to wait—perhaps too long. Since I was also in the market for a machine to help out with my V-Ray renders, I decided that the time had come to evaluate my alternatives. The current Westmere-based Mac Pro line is definitely out of sync with what's available elsewhere, and it is no longer competitive from a price-to-power standpoint.
I have heard it said that Dell, HP, and Apple split the workstation market pretty much three ways; whether or not this is true, it did seem worth taking a look at how the other big boys' hot-rods rolled. The HP Z820 and Dell Precision T5600 are both monstrous dual-socket Intel E5-2665 Xeons clocked at 2.4GHz and, if I had to guess, I'd say that they are much like what would have replaced the dual Westmere Xeon 2.66GHz Mac Pro that I reviewed in 2010.
Of course, you can still build your own workstation, but I'm writing this for an audience who needs top-tier support and doesn't want to chase six different companies when something goes wrong. I have my own overclocked 3930K gaming rig dual-booting Linux and Windows, but as I've pointed out countless times in the comments section of my Mac Pro reviews, a workstation needs to do one thing: keep working. Vendor support remains key to making this happen.
That's where the Mac Pro, Dell T5600, and HP Z820 come in. We'll start our cage match with the HP Z820... since it was the first machine to arrive for testing.
Review of the HP Z820
Specs as reviewed:
- Dual E5-2665/8 Core/2.4GHz with 20MB cache
- Intel® C602 chipset
- 16GB quad-channel RAM (16 DIMM slots total, 4 used in this config)
- NVIDIA Quadro 4000 2GB (1 dual-link DVI, 2 DisplayPort output)
- 500GB – Windows 7 Professional
- Dual-layer DVD-RW
- HP keyboard and mouse
Since you can get Linux for these machines instead of Windows 7, I also tested this machine with an HP-provided Redhat Linux boot disk. More on that later.
Standard Ports:
- 4 USB 2.0 on back, 1 on front
- 2 USB 3.0 on back, 2 on front
- 1 Firewire 400 on back, 1 on front
- 2 Gigabit ethernet on back
- 1 VGA out
- PS/2 keyboard and mouse on back
- Stereo output on back
- Headphones out on front
- Mic input on back and front
Expansion slots:
- 3 PCIe Gen3 x16
- 1 PCIe Gen3 x8
- 1 PCIe Gen3 x4
- 1 PCIe Gen2 x4
Price as configured: $6,840 with discount active at time of review
HP has a lot of high-end products, and the company is no stranger to content creators. For instance, its 30-bit Dreamcolor monitors are exceptional, and if you bought one of these monitors and hooked it up to a Mac Pro, you'd actually be throwing away color (Apple still hasn't added support for 10-bits-per-channel color to OS X). My Z820 and Dell T5600 review units came with a Quadro 4000; both Nvidia and AMD restrict high-bit output to their pro line by means of their drivers, so both workstations can take advantage of these high-bit displays.
Unfortunately, I don't own a 30-bit display, but the Quadro 4000 works fine with my dual NEC 2490WUXi monitors in both Windows 7 and CentOS 6.3.
The price tag
Before I cover the hardware and software features of the Z820, let's talk about that slight sticker shock. The first thing that jumped out at you about the Z820 was probably not its 32-thread CPU or giant cache—it was the price tag of $6,840, sans tax. We don't tend to think of Mac Pros as "the cheap retail option," but workstation retailers like HP, Dell, and BOXX consistently come in at a higher price than the equivalently specced Mac Pro. This time around, the situation is obviously different, since Apple doesn't even offer a Xeon E5 machine, but it is typical and there's a good reason for it: on-site support.
The HP Z820 and Dell T5600 both come with three-year on-site warranties, while the Mac Pro has one-year standard AppleCare (you can buy an added two years of AppleCare for $250). The difference is significant. AppleCare through a local Apple store or certified Apple repair outlet works well if you live in a major city and can afford a few days of down time, but an on-site warranty is like having a hotline to a dude ready to run out to your office to fix your problem the next day. It's meant to ensure minimum down time in case something goes wrong, like when a power supply fails.
This level of service adds a lot of risk to the profitability of a machine for workstation vendors. If you live in Cheesehole, Wisconsin—away from an HP- or Dell-certified repair guy—they will still put their dude on a plane to fix your computer, for three years, at no additional cost.
An on-site warranty is a standard in enterprise environments, and Apple says that AppleCare includes on-site coverage... but I've never once had them send a technician to my office in 20+ years of using Macs. They always tell you to bring the machine in, and even at large Apple stores, parts aren't stocked, so there's at least a two-day down time for repairs.
On-site coverage is computer life insurance, and it's expensive. Given that level of service, the $6,840 price tag of the Z820 is very reasonable; whether the added premium is worth it remains between you and your wallet.
The case
The Z820 was the first of the PC machines to arrive, and it instantly looked and felt like a solid workstation. It's quite heavy and about the same size as the Mac Pro case, with about half an inch more in the width and two inches less in the height thanks to the front and rear handles being integrated into its 5U rack-mountable profile:
The front sports three optical bays, two USB 3 ports, one USB 2 port, a headphone jack, a mic input, and a Firewire 400 connector. It might seem funny for a new machine to incude such an old Firewire port, but it can come in handy for older DV cameras. (You can have the Dell T5600 configured with a 1394a card as well.)
Despite its heft, the Z820's exterior is mostly plastic, with two solid metal sides. The plastic is not cheap-feeling and the finishing and tight coupling with the metal make it feel rugged and worth the money. When I look at the design of a workstation, I consider its resale value. When you sit next to a used Mac Pro with a prospective buyer, it's easy for them to want—it's beautiful, solid, and air-tight. The Z820 is what I'd imagine a competing case would look like.
Once you crack open the case, the Z820 continues to impress. The four 3.5" drive bays are stacked at the front of the unit, which I found really helpful when doing some swapping and rejigging:
The toolless HD mounting brackets of the Z820 are nice, and have a firm snap-and-lock mechanism for setting them securely in place within the drive bay. As in the Mac Pro, you can have drives resting harmlessly in the bay without being connected. The plastic brackets felt a bit flimsy at first, but they were fine even with a lot of disk swapping. It does seem a little weird that a newer workstation wouldn't have SSD mounts, but my Icy Dock SSD-to-HDD enclosure fit fine in one of the bays.
Full-size ATX fiends will whine about how four drive bays are too few, but my Corsair 550D and its four optical drive bays (three empty) and six hard drive bays are overkill—and of dubious value considering the 550D is designed for low noise and heat. Video professionals will have external RAID arrays connected to PCI cards or by Thunderbolt, not a bunch of disks inside their machine. The smaller size is more portable and lowers the overall heat of the PCs, so I prefer this approach. But you do need a balance between expandability and size, and the Z820 is right in the sweet spot in my opinion.
The PCI slots are easily accessible and cable management is exceptional. There are no screws for the PCI cards—they get locked in place by a small door that closes when the case is shut. Smart, time-saving features like this are something you will appreciate if you're upgrading a lab of these. Once you take off the PCI and mainboard compartment doors, all the RAM is easily accessible:
The Z820 has 16 DIMM slots, twice that of the current Mac Pro, so presumably you could upgrade it to 128GB with 8GB chips vs. 64GB total for the Mac Pro (which would be a bad idea anyway, because the Mac Pro uses triple-channel memory). But honestly, I don't see this as a huge advantage. I do 3D for print (high res 32-bits-per-channel images) and run virtual machines and almost never page out with just 24GB. Nevertheless, if you need a ridiculous amount of RAM, the Z820 will accommodate it.
The power supply is modular and easily pulled out by a similar handle and snap-bracket that the hard drives have. This is clearly a machine that's well-engineered from head to toe.


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The Science of Addiction, The Myth of Choice
Posted by The Situationist Staff on April 7, 2007
Helen Phillips of New Scientist has a fascinating article on how our brains unknowingly become addicted to different behaviors and forms of consumption, and how whether we become addicted to something depends largely on the situations in which we find ourselves rather than the choices we make. Several Situationist contributors have explored this topic in other writings, including in the law review article "Broken Scales: Obesity and Justice in America," and in Situationist posts "FDA Wants Informed Choice" and "The Intersection Between Tort Law and Social Psychology in Violent Videogames." We have excerpted pieces of Phillips' article below.
* * *
There's a common perception that overindulgence in certain behaviours is all down to individual choice. If you are overeating, oversexed, gambling away your earnings or spending all your time online, you are more likely to be considered morally abhorrent than the victim of a disease. Calling these problems "addictions" has triggered debates about whether our society or our biology is to blame, and whether people that fall foul of a behavioural obsession should be offered help and treatment rather than punishment.
* * *
Several studies of the brain and behaviour back the idea that there's very little biological difference between what goes on in the head of a gambling addict and that of a crack addict. A growing number of researchers believe that the same processes lie behind all addictions, behavioural or chemical, whether it's gambling or shopping, computer gaming, love, work, exercise, pornography, eating or sex. "They have more in common than different," says Sabine Grüsser-Sinopoli, who runs a clinic and research lab for behavioural addictions at the Charité Medical University in Berlin, Germany. "Addiction is all the same."
* * *
More and more people are going to clinics asking for help to control the need to shop, have sex or gamble, because their behaviour is ruining their lives, says Grüsser-Sinopoli. Technological advances, especially the rise in popularity of the internet, are increasing the opportunities we have to engage in potentially addictive behaviours. The Center for Online Addiction, an educational and treatment group founded just over a decade ago by psychologist and internet addiction specialist Kimberly Young, now of St Bonaventure University in New York, estimates that as much as 5 to 10 per cent of the US population is addicted to some kind of internet-based activity, be it gaming, gambling, or using chatrooms and email.
Problem gambling is perhaps the most harmful of these. A 2000 survey commissioned by the British National Centre for Social Research revealed that about 1 per cent of the UK adult population had a pathological gambling problem, and the repeat survey, due out in a few months, is widely expected to show a rise – especially among women. Some researchers predict as many as 10 per cent of the US population will soon have a gambling problem. Record numbers of people are signing up to online gambling sites – the industry is now worth an estimated $12 billion – prompting a new US bill that aims to tighten restrictions on the practice. Around half of the new entries in this year's "rich list" published by The Sunday Times in London have made their money running internet gambling sites or casinos.
The debate about whether behaviour can be considered a true addiction is not an entirely new one. In 1975, psychologist Stanton Peele wrote a book called Love and Addiction, which argued that all kinds of drug and non-drug experiences, including love, could be described as addictions. At the time, this was a term only really used to describe heroin abuse, he says. But look at how we talk about a lost love, and how similar to drug withdrawal it sounds: we are unable to think of anything else or to get out of bed, we're crying and physically in pain. "There really is no way to differentiate the behaviour of gambling, a love affair or pursuing a drug," he says.
The evidence that behavioural addictions are very similar to chemical ones is mounting from brain studies too. According to addiction specialist Eric Nestler of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, drug addictions and "natural" addictions seem to involve shared pathways in the brain. "Take a person with sex addiction, or a pathological gambler: their brains all show abnormal responses – the same reactions to drugs of abuse," he says.
All pleasurable stimuli, natural and unnatural, act on the same "reward" circuitry in the brain. When we find something desirable, the brain chemical dopamine is released in the brain. Drugs of abuse all cause dopamine release, triggering a desire to keep taking them. Pleasurable behaviours are rewarding too and also release dopamine. The fact that behaviours and drugs of abuse converge on the same brain circuit is not enough to prove they can both be addictive, but there are more specific changes that do seem to be characteristic of addiction.
* * *
One other compulsive behaviour that has been controversial in the discussion of addiction is eating behaviour. Whether we could actually get hooked on food is controversial, but there are signs that delta Fos B rises in animals that compulsively consume sugar, suggesting sugar might be addictive in some cases.
Bart Hoebel, a psychologist from Princeton University, believes we can be addicted to food – at least to sugar (New Scientist, 1 February 2003, p 26). He has shown that rats bingeing on sugar release dopamine in the same way as rats given high doses of addictive drugs, and doing so can cause lasting changes in the dopamine system, withdrawal symptoms and cross-sensitisation to other drugs, including amphetamines. Very sweet foods can induce a form of dependency, he believes.
One thing that this focus on behavioural addictions highlights is that we all have the potential to be addicts, says Jim Orford of the University of Birmingham, UK, author of a report on behavioural addictions for the UK Office of Science and Technology. "Almost any of us can become behavioural addicts, given the right exposure, the right timing and so on," he says. "But there are multiple causes: our personalities, genetics – it's not simple." Why some people develop addictions while others can safely dip into these activities with no ill effects is still unknown.
* * *
8 Responses to "The Science of Addiction, The Myth of Choice"
April 8, 2007 at 6:26 pm
I don't trust New Scientist ever since they published an article about a propulsion system that contradicts conservation of momentum.
April 10, 2007 at 2:36 pm
This is an interesting speculation.
May 4, 2007 at 1:23 pm
[…] there has been a flurry of articles on addiction, the reasons why we become addicted and why do we continue to abuse these […]
August 4, 2007 at 10:06 am
[…] debate concerning actions such as gambling, obesity, and video gaming. The Situationist Blog has a post from April that explores the some of the new research into addiction. Biology is […]
March 15, 2008 at 4:32 pm
[…] BERDIK: Addiction researchers are conducting clinical trials on drugs to help treat problem gamblers, but no matter what scientists discover those who work with compulsive gamblers say that breaking the habit will always take more than a pill. It often takes major lifestyle changes. * * * Below we've the initial portions of a news article from an Atlantic City news channel, "Compulsive Gambler Files $20M Suit Against Casinos." * * * She was an ambitious lawyer and TV commentator who starting going to Atlantic City casinos to relax, and soon was getting high-roller treatment that included limousines whisking her to the resort. Arelia Margarita Taveras says she was even allowed to bring her dog, Sasha, to the blackjack tables, sitting in her purse. But her gambling spun out of control: She said she would go days at a time at the tables, not eating or sleeping, brushing her teeth with disposable wipes so she didn't have to leave.She says her losses totaled nearly $1 million.Now she's chasing the longest of long shots: a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off."They knew I was going for days without eating or sleeping," Taveras said. "I would pass out at the tables. They had a duty of care to me. Nobody in their right mind would gamble for four or five straight days without sleeping."Experts say her case will be difficult to prove, but it provides an unusually detailed window into the life of a problem gambler. * * * To read the rest of the article, click here. To watch an ABC video reporting on a compulsive gambler who is suing a casino, click here. To read some related Situationist posts, go to "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "The Science of Addiction, The Myth of Choice." […]
March 3, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Stanton Peele is full of shit, and the New Scientist is a propagenda arm of the CIA, NSA. Notice I said,propagenda, not propaganda. Addiction sells, and these dinks have no interest in helping the public to discovery nor, recovery.
January 6, 2021 at 5:35 am
In their mind, it is like asking what hand they are keeping at the poker table. Although the sport has a lot of different versions, all variations adhere to the same fundamental pattern.


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HOUSTON, TEXAS—Astronauts have been saying "Houston" into their radios since 1965. The callsign refers in general to the Johnson Space Center in Texas, and the people who answer to it sit in the Mission Control Center, located in Building 30 near the south end of the The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) campus. "Mission Control" has been the subject of movies, television shows, and documentaries for decades. It's usually depicted as a bustling room filled with serious folks in short-sleeved white shirts and skinny black ties who shout dramatically about damaged spaceships while frantically pressing buttons on chunky 1960s control consoles. What is it really like, though, to sit at one of those consoles? What do all of those buttons do?
On a sunny morning in early October, I hopped in my car to find out. The Johnson Space Center is about a dozen miles from my home in League City, up the newly constructed NASA Bypass and down the historic NASA Road 1. After a short drive, my photographer and I were in line at JSC's main gate. We were meeting contacts from NASA's Public Affairs Office, and they were going to escort us further on-site to Building 30 for an Ars "Mission Control" tour. Our mission? Explain the technical details behind how the room operated—and what it was like to sit at a console and answer those calls from space.
One small step
This wasn't my first time in Building 30. I visited JSC with some frequency during my time at Boeing, though not often enough for the feeling of wonder to wear off. Some people are awed when they go to St. Paul's Basilica, others by visiting Disney World. To me, neither place holds a candle to the Johnson Space Center—this is the place where, 50 years ago, men and women helped execute the greatest engineering achievement in all of human history.
The original plan for my visit was simply to tour the one restored Apollo-era mission control room, to take plenty of pictures, and to give Ars readers a good technical understanding of how "Mission Control" worked during the Apollo era. NASA, however, upped the ante when it assigned my tour guide—none other than Sy Liebergot.
The name should be familiar if you're a fan of manned space flight. Seymour Liebergot, a retired NASA Flight Controller, sat at the EECOM console for Apollo 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. He was one of the flight controllers responsible for ensuring the safe return of Apollo 13 following the explosion of one of its liquid oxygen tanks (in the film Apollo 13, he's played by director Ron Howard's brother, Clint). Liebergot was present for some of the most monumental moments in space flight, and he was going to walk me through the technical details of Mission Operations Control Room 2. It was like requesting a tour of the Bat Cave and having Alfred show you around the place personally.
JSC looks a lot like a college campus. Situated on 1,600 acres of wetlands between Houston and Galveston, it was constructed during 1962 and 1963, eventually becoming operational in time to shepherd Project Gemini into space. One hundred buildings sit scattered across the property, with the main cluster along NASA Road 1, interspersed with parking lots and neatly maintained green spaces. With the exception of a few recent additions, the buildings of JSC appear every bit the product of their era: 1960s modernist, most mixing terraced concrete and glass. The corridors look like they should exude the odor of decades of cigarette smoke, but the federal government's "no smoking" policy has been in place long enough that most smell faintly of stale coffee instead.
Building 30, which was recently named the "Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center," is a tall and mostly windowless structure, three stories in two wings, joined by a central lobby. Building 30 houses several different "mission control" rooms, which are officially called Flight Control Rooms (FCRs, pronounced "fickers"). When the building was first made operational in 1965 there were a pair of control rooms, then called Mission Operation Control Rooms (MOCRs, "mo-kers").
The MOCRs served NASA through the Shuttle era. The room that housed MOCR 1 has been remodeled and repurposed several times; it is currently used as the International Space Station FCR. MOCR 2, which was used for almost every Gemini and Apollo flight, was restored to its 1960s-era appearance after retirement in 1992. It is now a registered historic landmark.
MOCR 2 is on the third floor of Building 30's Mission Operations Wing. The other floors house the Shuttle and station FCRs, as well as FCR support rooms (called MPSRs, for Multi-Purpose Staff Rooms) and office space. The first floor used to house the Real Time Computing Complex, or RTCC, which during Apollo consisted of five IBM System/360 mainframes and their support equipment. As we'll see, the RTCC was a vitally important part of the MOCR's operations.
After passing through the security doors, Liebergot and I rode an elevator up to the third floor. We walked through high-ceilinged corridors with raised floors covered in rubberized tiles, an arrangement which would be familiar to many IT workers. MOCR 2 occupies the central area of the floor, around some corners and past a low alcove containing lockers and a coffee machine. To enter, we walked up a side ramp much like you would find in a movie theater with stadium seating. MOCR 2 is indeed about the size of a small theater—in fact, the room is sometimes used by NASA to screen Apollo 13 and other space films for selected audiences.
The iconic Ford-Philco-designed consoles are arranged in four tiers stepping down from the rear of the room, separated by a glass wall from the visitor's gallery and a pair of press booths. The room is dimly lit by recessed fluorescents, and Sy informed me the room was kept even darker. That way, it's easier to see the console displays.
Once our NASA contact cleared out some picture takers and shut the doors, MOCR 2 was suddenly cloaked in silence. I could feel the ghosts. Here, in this very room, sitting at these sage-colored consoles, 30 years of manned space flight happened. It felt very much like standing in a cathedral—except that this room wasn't just built to talk to the heavens, but to actually visit them.


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Editorial: Tsarnaev and the death penalty
Nine months after the Boston Marathon bombings, emotions may still be too raw for a full-throated debate over Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to seek the death penalty for the sole surviving suspect in the case. Few people want to be accused of having sympathy for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
But there are legal and constitutional questions raised by the prosecution that ought to be considered in the courts, in Congress and in the nation's law schools.
The main question relates to jurisdiction. By tradition and precedent, federal prosecutions are for crimes committed on federal property, crimes against the federal government, crimes involving interstate flight or interstate commerce and federal crimes that have no state equivalent. In recent decades, the federal criminal code has expanded well beyond those bounds, resulting in considerable overlap between state and federal offenses.
The actual crime for which Tsarnaev will be tried provides an example: "using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death." Under state law, there's a simpler legal term for what he's charged with doing: first-degree murder.
The crimes committed last April 15 were certainly heinous, with three people killed and more than 260 wounded. An MIT police officer was killed later that week, allegedly by the Tsarnaev brothers. But these crimes were committed on state streets, not on federal property. There is no evidence we've seen indicating a foreign plot, the crossing of state lines or interstate commerce. These are crimes allegedly committed by Massachusetts residents against Massachusetts residents. Why not charge Tsarnaev under Massachusetts law?
Two reasons have been suggested. Tsarnaev's crimes smell of terrorism, largely because of the defendant's religion and politics. Second, the federal charges carry the possibility of the death penalty, and Massachusetts law does not.
This decision raises questions of federalism. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty because its elected leaders, reflecting the view of the citizenry, have repeatedly rejected it. Shouldn't crimes committed against the people of Massachusetts be punished in the way Massachusetts has prescribed?
One answer is that the Marathon bombings, because of their allegedly political motivation, were crimes against all the people of the United States, and should be prosecuted by the national, not the state, government. Holder's statement justifying capital punishment in this case charged Tsarnaev with "betrayal of the United States." That phrase may lack legal standing, but it carries an emotional resonance that, we expect, is good enough for most people.
MetroWest (Mass.) Daily News


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21 Results Found
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This article was originally published in the September/October 1993 issue of Home Energy Magazine. Some formatting inconsistencies may be evident in older archive content.
| Home Energy Home Page | Back Issues of Home Energy |
Home Energy Magazine Online September/October 1993
It's the Duct's Turn for Retrofits
Pity the poor neglected duct. Put end-to-end, there are enough of them in American homes to reach to the moon and back. Yet for years the duct's energy aspects have been ignored by researchers. To energy specialists, ducts simply connected two much more technically interesting aspects of a house's heating and cooling systems, the furnace (or air conditioner) and the building envelope. The building envelope, with its many opportunities for retrofits, garnered the most attention. Meanwhile, furnace and air conditioner efficiencies have been pushed ever upwards by federal standards.
Now it's the duct's turn. Or, more accurately, now it is time for thermal energy distribution systems to receive their share of retrofits. Part of this issue of Home Energy is devoted to articles about improving the distribution of heating and cooling in homes.
These articles span our knowledge of distribution systems. It will immediately become apparent that the research is not yet complete. Indeed, even key concepts, such as efficiency have not yet acquired standard definitions. This is not surprising given the variety of diagnostics, retrofits, and buildings examined. These articles are more snapshots of current thinking than the final word. Still, they demonstrate that distribution systems in most American homes are rarely working as designed and are almost always major opportunities for energy conservation retrofits.
A house's distribution system is closely linked to unexpected activities. For example, a leak in an air duct may cause depressurization, leading to spillage into the house of exhaust fumes from gas appliances. In other cases, the efficiency of the air distribution system will depend on the pattern of air infiltration leaks in the shell.
The traditional techniques to construct and repair air distribution systems are laughably poor. That old standby, duct tape, has been implicated as one of the worst offenders; a more accurate name would be temporary tape. The new techniques, described in this issue, emphasize measurement and more quality control. This is not surprising because an incorrect retrofit will often lead to an even worse condition.
This special issue provides fewer final recommendations than usual. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity to capitalize on the latest research results and observe the work of some very creative and dedicated researchers and practitioners.
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A few days ago, Kim Kardashian said that what she got most from her relationship with Kanye West was an appreciation of privacy. The new cover of French fashion mag L'Officiel Hommes features Kimye's idea of what "privacy" is, whose definition clearly got switched to "maybe fucking on a magazine cover" in the Oxford English Dictionary while we were all sleeping. Damn you, nocturnal semantics elves.
Meanwhile, a more PG-rated Kim covers this month's Cosmo—like I said: privacy!—and says that she judged Kourtney when her unmarried big sister got pregnant in 2009: "I was like, 'You're not married! How could you do this?' I was really firm and strict. But she was like, 'Marriage isn't what I want.' And later, I realized she had a better family life than I did."
And on possible nuptials with 'Ye: "[Marriage] is something I know that we both want in our future, but I don't have this sense of urgency about it," she revealed. "I have this best friend who understands me and helps me through all my tough experiences, and vice versa, you know? It just feels like this is it for me." [Bossip, Just Jared, The Cut]
Movie star Jennifer Aniston acts like movie star, everybody poops themselves with indignation. Or at least this source on the set of Untitled Elmore Leonard Project, who says that Aniston ignores co-stars Isla Fisher, Tim Robbins and Will Forte:
"The only person who doesn't eat with everyone else is Jen. She quickly grabs a lunch to go and leaves." [...] "All the actors ride in normal production vans when they head to lunch, but Jen has her own luxury SUV."[...] "And not only is Jen's private trailer miles away from the set, but she heads all the way back there each day to eat her lunch away from everyone else. Her behavior is a clear indicator to everyone that she's not approachable. And it's just unnecessary. There's no reason why she has to act any better than anyone else on that movie set."
Yeah. The fact that anyone thought she wasn't like that? That means a team of people whose names nobody knows is VERY good at their job. If they let me know where their office is, I will send over some breakfast sandwiches. [Radar Online]
In response to Seth MacFarlane's yeesh-worthy joke about their "date night," Chris Brown actually talked about his 2009 assault on Rihanna at Elton John's Oscars party/AIDS benefit: "People attack me and criticise me, it happens all the time. But they don't know me, and they don't know us. It doesn't bother me anymore. Other people can judge us but they don't know anything."
And: "Sometimes you row, you fight, with the one you love and things get said, stuff spirals. That night was the deepest regret of my life, the biggest mistake. But she loves me – what can I say? I'm forgiven… but, yes, I worked hard for it." "I've learned a lot since that night and I've grown up. I was very young and I took a lot of stuff, fame, for granted. I didn't understand it. The support from those who do know me and the fans, who are incredible, got me through." [The Sun]
Rather surprisingly, Elton John was one of those people. [Page Six]
Brown arrived sans Rihanna, in a leopard tuxedo, and reportedly flirted with other ladies. [Us Weekly]
"Spies said Charlize Theron 'stayed near MacFarlane all night.'" [Page Six]
"Charlize was very chatty with Seth and they shared a laugh in between his performances," an onlooker tells E! News." [E!]
Nooooo, please let this be just the random media-pairing generator and not a real thing that might happennnnn.
Here's video of your spirit animal Jennifer Lawrence ordering McDonalds on the Oscars red carpet. [Gossip Cop]
Also: J. Law is back to brunette for Catching Fire. [Us Weekly]
Prince Michael Jackson will make his acting debut on 90210. [E!]
- Alas, Netflix is unlikely to pick up any future seasons of Arrested Development after this one. ;__; [HuffPo]
- Janet Jackson has been secretmarried to Wissam Al Mana for months now and none of us knew. [Extra TV]
- Justin Bieber wore a gas mask around London for some reason. [USA Today]
- Downton Abbey's currently casting for musician Jack Ross, the first black character on the show. [The Sun]
- Suri Cruise has a body double. A BODY DOUBLE. [NYDN]
- Since it hasn't already got enough crazy, Lindsay Lohan will guest-star on Charlie Sheen's show Anger Management. [Radar Online]
- Teen Mom Jenelle Evans is back in rehab for heroin. [Radar Online]
- Pippa Middleton got a gig writing a recipe and dining column in a supermarket magazine in the UK. [The Guardian UK]
- The late Lupe Ontiveros' family is (understandably) mad that she was left out of the In Memoriam segment of the Oscars. [Bossip]
- "Ke$ha wrote a song about her vagina with her mother." It's Tuesday. [The Sun]
- While Kristen Stewart was limping around the Oscars "waiting for him," Rob Pattinson was taking pictures with fans. [Hollywood Life]
- Bey and Jay had dinner with Sarah Jessica Parker and five other buddies during the Oscars because they didn't give a shit about it. [Page Six]
- Nicki Minaj is waiting for the right role to break into acting. (Coincidentally, the next Spielberg-produced film includes the juicy role of "Barbie—British person—Crazy person!") [Page Six]
- John Travolta got the dancing started at Madonna's Oscars party; other guests in attendance included Ashton Kutcher, Selena Gomez and Daniel Day-Lewis. So like, a conga line composed of The Breakfast Club. [Page Six]
- Zooey Deschanel likes that Jennifer Lawrence fell down at the Oscars. "Clumsy girls rule." [Team Coco]
- James McAvoy may star in the remake of The Crow. Still haven't forgiven him for Penelope. [NME]
- Anne Hathaway practiced her Oscars speech over and over to make it seem more "likable." You'd think since she's clearly been doing it since she was 5, she'd have done a better job with that. [Us Weekly]


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Anderson Cooper is holding the GOP presidential candidates accountable and fact-checking statements made at the Las Vegas debate on Tuesday night.
Post by: Anderson Cooper
Filed under: 2012 Election • Keeping Them Honest • Raw Politics
If these candidates were real leaders who were concerned about the American people, they would be pushing for Congress to pass both a jobs bill (NOW) and getting that budget supercommittee moving. Instead, all I'm hearing is a bunch of partisan rhetoric that got us where we are.
I'm still not seeing a viable candidate. The middle class, after 25 years of sliding, can't afford Cain's 9-9-9 Plan. And without a vibrant middle class, I don't see how we can recover.
This is just Like the "R" Mess in Congress, all they do is argue and back Stab !
Nice one setting the record straight and nipping the poor little me candidate in the bud
I thank you mr.cooper for giving MY president RON PAUL ample questions and discussion time. Its sad to seem some media reporters down playing s creditable man with a solid plan.
I have a question to all Republican presidential candidates at the next upcoming debate:
There's plenty of blame going on at the current administration, particularly against President Obama.
Question: If you were elected president, and the economic situation will not change for the better significantly within 2-3 years who should the American people blame?
Keeping them honest is a nice idea! Start by asking them honest questions. Why does Romney not want to debate what happened over 3 years ago and how we got here? What do they feel is the cause of our current economic crisis? Did the Bush Tax Cuts contribute to our deficit? After 6 years of full GOP control that created this economy, why should they get another chance? If all of them were opposed to (Bush's) TARP plan, what would have happened to GM and the too big to fail banks? If all of them detest the $250 billion in stimulus money, why did they all take it? Did Gov. Perry take $11 billion in protest? And pull back all foreign aide, really? We should stop rebuilding Iraq? Oh yeah, we invaded a country needlessly but since that was more than 3 years ago we can't honestly discuss it?
Mr. Cooper,
How come Ron Paul doesn't get much support though he is on of the only candidates that is genuine about what he would mandate in office knowing that the president doesn't have much power besides things like the budget or using his/her political capital to push their agenda?
Also, he was the only candidate who wasn't offered a closing statement. I really believe there's a media agenda (on all networks, even Fox) to ignore Ron Paul. He wins a straw poll and it's reported as no big deal. Another candidate wins one, and it's marked as a huge feat. I'd REALLY like to know why Ron Paul didn't have the opportunity to have a closing statement. At the end of the debate, you can even hear Santorum mention it to Ron Paul.
So, question: If taxes are raised on the rich, will charitable giving increase or decrease drastically? Could it lead to a downfall of many not-for-profit organizations if the rich have no monetary incentive to give?
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°


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Grover Cleveland
Personality Profile
Who is Grover Cleveland? He is a male celebrity. He was born on Saturday March 18th 1837, in Caldwell, NJ, USA,.
Grover Cleveland is practical, down to earth with strong ideas about right and wrong. He is orderly, organized, systematic and controlled, and once committed - he employs decisive and methodical steps to problems solving, without giving up easily.
Grover seeks to establish a solid foundation, and would rather use hard work and long hours to build a business or career than search for "get rich quick" schemes. He has great potential for success, but only after putting out effort and overcoming the limitations he so often encounters. Courageous and a true survivor, he is a builder and the foundation of any enterprise, and his hard work and practical values pay off to provide Grover Cleveland with the rewards he seeks and deserves.
Justice and honesty are sacred to Cleveland, making him reliable and dependable, and quite often - a cornerstone in the community. Also, though not a typical idealist, Grover Cleveland is willing to work for a better world in a realistic way.
Grover Cleveland works well with others, but it is important that he would have his own responsibility and well-defined task, because he performs better when his responsibilities are not overlapping with those of others.
Due to the rare discipline and perseverance that Cleveland possesses, not everyone can keep up with him, and he has to be careful not to be bossy and rude. He can be also rigid in his ideas and get stuck in convention or too quick in judging his fellow man.
Grover Cleveland is loyal to those he loves. He is well suited for marriage and often becomes a responsible loving parent. However, anything that violates his profound sense of order, such as separation or divorce can be a shattering experience for him. More...
More flavors to Grover's personality
Grover Cleveland tends to be quite adaptable, and he finds it easy to fit into most social set ups and vocational fields.
There are no particular virtues that can cause an imbalance in Grover's personality and life, but he has to work hard and persistently to develop those special strengths that he desires to attain.
Learning to be wisely assertive is a major lesson to be taken by Grover Cleveland throughout his life.
Tour Grover's menu and gain more insight into his personality traits, relationships, strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, compatibility with you and with others, and much more.
We invite you to create your own free personality profile, in private and for your eyes only!.


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Vehicle Options
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Vehicle Inquiry for 2018 Mercedes-Benz C-Class C 300 Sedan
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Features and options are descriptive of what can be expected on the vehicle. Actual options should be verified by the customer. Price may exclude tax, title, tags, governmental fees and any finance charges (if applicable). Unless otherwise stated separately in the vehicle details, where allowed by law, the price may not include processing, administrative, closing or similar fees. Current mileage may vary due to test drives and vehicle relocation. Actual vehicle options should be confirmed with the dealer. Recall Notice -Some vehicles offered for sale may be subject to unrepaired manufacturer safety recalls. To determine the recall status of a vehicle, visit https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls . Note that there may be a delay between when a recall has been issued, repaired, and then posted online. Always inquire as to the current status with the dealership prior to purchase.


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Anderson Cooper adds TV host Pat Sajak to the RidicuList after admitting he was drunk on TV.
Post by: Anderson Cooper
Filed under: The RidicuList
I just think you both are just fantastic.....you make me laugh so hard....love you both....
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°


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New ship's Capt. Kirk is used to 'Star Trek' jokes
Captain Kirk's futuristic-looking vessel sports cutting-edge technology, new propulsion and powerful armaments, but this ship isn't the Starship Enterprise.
The skipper of the stealthy USS Zumwalt is Navy Capt. James Kirk, and yes, he's used to the jokes about the name he shares with the TV starship commander played by actor William Shatner.
Kirk takes it in stride.
"I don't take any offense," he told The Associated Press in an interview. "If it's a helpful moniker that brings attention to help us to do what we need to do to get the ship into the fleet and into combat operations, then that's fine."
While it's no starship, the technology-laden Zumwalt taking shape at Maine's Bath Iron Works is unlike any other U.S. warship.
The Navy's largest destroyer will feature a composite deckhouse with hidden radar and sensors and an angular shape that minimizes its radar signature. Its unusual wave-piercing hull will reduce the ship's wake.
It's the first U.S. surface warship to use electric propulsion, and its power plant is capable of producing enough electricity to light up a small city and to power future weapons like the electromagnetic rail gun.
Inside, it's just as unique. The number of sailors needed to stand watch will be reduced through the use of cameras and video monitors that show what's going on outside. The bridge will indeed look like something from "Star Trek" with two chairs surrounded by nearly 360 degrees of video monitors.
A handful of reporters accompanying Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday got a first look at the ship's interior while it's under construction. It's due to be christened in the spring.
The 610-foot (186-meter)-long ship has the highest level of automation on a U.S. surface warship, with systems in place to combat flooding and to put out fires, among other things. Because of automation and technology, the number of sailors needed to run it will be nearly half the number serving on the current Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.
All this whiz-bam technology comes at a price that sailors couldn't have imagined in the mid-1960s, when the first episodes of "Star Trek" aired on television. The first-in-class Zumwalt will cost northward of $3.5 billion, a price tag so high that the Navy was forced to reduce the number of ships in the series to just three.
The "Star Trek" comparisons were inevitable even before "Star Trek" actor George Takei used his popular Facebook page to point out the similarities of Kirk's name.
Kirk, a Bethesda, Maryland, native and 1990 Naval Academy graduate, said the jokes about his name began early in his career, with colleagues telling him that they couldn't wait for him to reach the rank of captain.
The Navy skipper points out that his name is actually James A. Kirk, while the fictional Starship Enterprise captain was James "Jim" T. Kirk. But that didn't stop him from earning the call sign "Tiberius"—the fictional Kirk's middle name—while working with an aircraft carrier strike group. That was later shortened to just "T."
While he doesn't mind the Starfleet jokes, Kirk said that people sometimes focus too much on the technology incorporated in the futuristic-looking Zumwalt.
"Yes, we're going to talk about all of the wonderful technology, but it still requires the sailors who are going to bring her to life," he said.
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


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Before I left on my trip, I had read the TSA guidelines for traveling with breastmilk and other liquid exemptions (items that are exempt from the 3-1-1 rule). I had also read about Stacey Armato, the lawyer and breastfeeding mother who was detained and bullied by TSA and made to miss her flight when she refused to allow her pumped breastmilk to be x-rayed. It was my understanding from what I had read that:
- "When carrying formula, breast milk, or juice through the checkpoint, they will be inspected, however, you or your infant or toddler will not be asked to test or taste breast milk, formula, or juice. [TSOs] may test liquid exemptions (exempt items more than 3 ounces) for explosives."
- "Breastmilk is in the same category as liquid medications"
- "Frozen items are allowed as long as they are frozen solid when presented for screening. If frozen items are partially melted, slushy, or have any liquid at the bottom of the container, they must meet 3-1-1 requirements."
- Breastmilk can be screened either through the x-ray machine "or by hand (the "alternate" screening for medication) which may consist of a visual inspection or a wipe of the container's exterior that supposedly detects explosives."
Here's What Happened
|Way more frozen milk than I had with me
The first TSO (a woman) told me that there is no alternate screening process for breastmilk. I told her that breastmilk is classified as a "medical liquid" according to TSA and is therefore allowed to be alternatively screened (not put through the x-ray machine) if I requested. She said that wasn't true, then called for her manager. I talked to him, repeating my request for the alternate screening, and he said that everything has to go through the x-ray machine. I told him that the TSA website says that breastmilk is in the same category as other medical liquids, and therefore does not have to be x-rayed. He said, "I'm sorry, but everything has to be x-rayed." I asked if there was anyone else I could speak to about it. This man (manager) told me that his manager would be a while because he was all the way over at the other end of the airport. He and the other TSOs directed me to wait in a chair in the middle of the security screening area. I could see my family waiting for me on the other side of the metal detector and full-body scanner. I sat down and held Daniel on my lap, without my shoes or other personal belongings, which had been placed on top of the x-ray machine at that point (as they had already gone through the screening process and were waiting for me to make it through).
While I was waiting, a male TSO asked me if I was waiting for someone, and I told him I was waiting to discuss my breastmilk with "a manager," and he walked away. I waited for approximately 20 minutes in the chair in the middle of security before the second manager, Randell C. Lundsgaard, showed up. Mr. Lundsgaard asked to see my milk. I opened my cooler bag, removed the ice pack, and showed him the three bags of frozen milk. Mr. Lundsgaard then reiterated that the breastmilk had to go through the x-ray machine. He told me that since it's frozen, it doesn't count as a medical liquid. I pointed out to him that breastmilk is perishable. If I didn't freeze it, it would spoil, and would be unusable. He said that he understood that, but that "bad people" could hide things in frozen liquids, and there's no way for him to verify that this is, in fact, breastmilk, without it going through the x-ray machine.
Trying Again
I sat right outside the checkpoint to look up the TSA regulations on my phone. I opened up the page that discusses medical liquids and also the page that talks about how liquids that are frozen solid at the time of screening are allowed through the checkpoint. I gathered up my things and got in line to go through security again. I unpacked my belongings again after my boarding pass and ID were checked, and immediately asked the first TSO (the female one who first said that there is no alternate screening for breastmilk) that I would like to talk to her manager again about the breastmilk. I told her I had the TSA rules from their website on my phone to show to him. Her manager came over to me and didn't want to see what I had to show him from the TSA website. He just told me that Mr. Lundsgaard would be a while (again) because he was all the way over at the other end of the airport (as he had been before). I acknowledged what he had said, and he walked away. I sat down again with Daniel. The female TSO set my bins of belongings aside because she didn't want them to go through the x-ray without me this time. They were out of my direct sight, so while I was waiting I had to turn around to watch my things, as other travelers had to work around them to put their things through the x-ray machine.
After a while, Mr. Lundsgaard showed up for a second time with another man, Francis K. Ruholl, to talk to me about the breastmilk. I showed them the websites that said breastmilk is a medical liquid and also that liquids that are frozen solid are allowed (and exempt from the 3-1-1 rule). They said that I was looking at two different rules that don't go together, and that since the milk is frozen, it no longer qualifies as a medical liquid because it's not a liquid anymore. I then asked, "What about frozen medications?" They said that if I had a note from my doctor that they would consider allowing the milk to not be put through the x-ray machine. I pointed out that I'm not in my home city, which is why I'm transporting frozen milk. How was I supposed to get a note from my doctor? They said if I had a note from my doctor that that "might help," but since I didn't have one, the breastmilk had to go through the x-ray machine. They said once again, that since it was frozen, they aren't able to do the alternate screening on it, because they can't just get a little bit of it out. I then offered to open one of the bags and break a piece off for them to thaw and test, and one of them asked, "But then how can we be sure that the rest of it is safe?"
At this point, I was getting fairly upset. I told them repeatedly that they were breaking their own (TSA's) rules. I mentioned Stacy Armato's story, and how the TSA has apologized to her and told her they were in the wrong and that her breastmilk should have been allowed to have the alternate screening. I offered to read them that post on the TSA blog, as I had read the regulations about breastmilk from the TSA site to them previously, and they declined.
Under Pressure
As I started to get up from my seat to put my milk on the conveyor, Daniel started to chew on the envelope my boarding pass was in. I took it from him and made a remark to him about it (as he has a tendency to try to eat paper whenever it's within reach). Mr. Ruholl then addressed Daniel, jokingly saying, "Don't chew on that, that's not good for you!" I replied, "No, but you know what is? My breastmilk. And I won't be able to give it to him after you irradiate it." He stopped talking. I told them that since my family was waiting for me and I wanted to get home, I would put the milk through the x-ray machine.
I went through the metal detector with Daniel, and motioned to my family members for one of them to come over and hold him for me. They were too nervous to approach the security area (having been questioned about why they were lingering there, I found out later) so I walked over to them in my socks and handed Daniel over. I went back to retrieve my belongings, then returned to my family. I was fairly distraught, and crying pretty hard by this point. My family tried to comfort me, but Mr. Ruholl came up to me because I had left my cell phone in one of the security bins.
My Family Has My Back
Since he was standing there with everyone, my brother started asking Mr. Ruholl questions. Mr. Ruholl quickly got very defensive and aggressive, and began pointing in my brother's face as he spoke loudly. I was standing in between them, but to the side, so Mr. Ruholl had his hand in my face. I reached up to his hand and asked him to get his hand out of my face while my brother was also asking him to stop pointing at him, and he put his hand down. I don't remember everything they said to each other, but my brother was trying to find out if Mr. Ruholl had broken the law. I recounted the events of the last 45 minutes or so to my family, while Mr. Ruholl repeatedly said that I was misinterpreting the regulations on the TSA website.
Mr. Ruholl then admitted that there are unpublished regulations that can't be made public "for security reasons" that state what he said about the milk having to go through the x-ray. My brother pointed out that if laws/regulations aren't made public, then the public can't follow them. My brother asked if the milk had been irradiated. I told him it had been, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to use it now.* Mr. Ruholl then said that it is my opinion that radiation is harmful. My brother pointed out that the harmful effects of radiation are scientific fact, not opinion. This went on. I was very upset. I was still crying, and having a bit of trouble breathing from being so worked-up. I left the group to go to the bathroom where I cried some more. When I came out, Mr. Ruholl had left, and I rejoined my family.
The fact is, we don't know what x-rays do to breastmilk. Regardless of this, the TSA is required to provide hand inspection of breastmilk and other items classified as "liquid medications" at the special request of the passenger. I was denied this opportunity in direct violation of the TSA's own published regulations. The whole idea that TSA has unpublished rules that passengers are required to follow is very scary to me. I understand there may be things that need to be kept secret in the interest of national security. I also know that if a regulation isn't discoverable by a passenger, she shouldn't be required to follow it. The agents I encountered were caught up on the semantics of a "medical liquid" being frozen (technically making it no longer a "liquid") instead of understanding that the milk itself is exempt from standard screening, if requested by the passenger.
I wrote most of this in the airport right after I recovered from crying after my time in the security checkpoint. My conclusions that day were this:
I feel violated. I feel my travel experience was greatly affected by the way I was treated. I wish they would have followed their regulations instead of harassing me in front of other passengers.
*Edited 1/6/11 at 6:46PM PST: To clarify, I did not throw away my milk after it was sent through the x-ray. I brought it all the way home with me and it's safe in my freezer now. I understand that x-rays don't cause breastmilk to have radiation or become radioactive. However, my milk was irradiated meaning it was exposed to a dose of radiation. The radiation could have had an effect on some of the cell structure/proteins in the milk (which is why breastmilk isn't supposed to be heated in the microwave). The fact that there should be alternate screening available for liquid medications acknowledges the fact that radiation from the airport x-ray machine could have an effect on items that are put through it. It's my right to choose whether I want my breastmilk exposed to the x-ray machine, and I was not allowed to make that choice.